 for joining us in Queen Elizabeth Park here on the territory of the Squamish, Musqueam and Slewa Tooth people. I really appreciate you joining us today. Today is the transgender day of remembrance. I'd like to start off with a bit of a reflection on the hate crimes, the violent hate crimes against transgender people around the world, and especially with the news coming out of Colorado, of the horrific shootings in Colorado aimed at a specific group. These kinds of hate crimes, there's no space for them anywhere in the world, and certainly not in British Columbia, and our hearts go out to those affected by the shootings in Colorado, and everybody hurt by crimes against people for simply being who they are. I've been traveling the province, talking to people across British Columbia, and it was a wonderful opportunity for me to hear about the priorities of British Columbians. They are happy with what our government has done to date, but they expect more from us in key areas of priority around housing, making sure that people have a decent place to live that they can afford, around healthcare, that they have access to a family doctor, and when they have a health crisis, they get the care that they need when they need it. Around a secure economy that works for everybody and is also part of our solution to the global challenges of climate change and reducing carbon pollution. And finally, what we're talking about here today, around making sure that our communities are safe, safe for everybody, safe for the people struggling with mental health and addiction in our streets, safe for families, safe for seniors, safe for all British Columbians. Today, I'm here to announce with many people, our BC Safer Community Action Plan. The core of this plan is coordination. Coordination between justice system actors, nonprofit organizations, cities, the provincial government, indigenous people, working together to ensure safer communities. This action plan has two key tracks. One around enforcement, recognizing that we have zero tolerance for violence in our communities, making sure that people are protected. The second track around intervening, helping people break the cycle of life in and out of jail, preventing crime before it happens. Intervention services that recognize the root causes of crime. So as part of today's action plan, I'll be announcing several different initiatives. They are all connected by this key goal of coordinating across agencies and governments. First, we're standing up new coordinated response teams to address the issue of violent offenders. These teams are made up of police, dedicated prosecutors, probation officers. Their mission is to prevent violent crime before it happens. And when it does happen, to make sure that violent offenders wait for trial in custody and not in our community, putting people at risk. We're focused on supports to help people break the cycle of repeat offending. We are expanding mental health crisis response teams into more communities. This includes 12 new peer assisted care teams with some that will be indigenous led. These peer assisted teams intervene when people are in mental health crisis in our streets, freeing up police to focus on crime instead of social services. And more car programs in more communities to pair police with healthcare workers that have the skills to support police and responding to people to mental health crisis. The attorney general is taking steps to reassure the public and build confidence in our justice system. He has issued a direction to prosecutors to implement a clear and understandable bail policy for repeat violent offenders within the existing federal law so that prosecutors, the public, all British Columbians understand the justice system is looking after their interests. That policy will be in place on Tuesday. We are also providing training and resources for prosecutors to work with police to make sure that the materials that are put in front of a court in the case of a violent offense are complete. So the court is making a decision on all of the facts and can protect the public. We also need Ottawa as a strong partner. Changes to federal rules around bail have had unintended consequences, especially when coupled with recent decisions from the Supreme Court of Canada. I've already spoken to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and several federal cabinet ministers about the need for these rules to change. It was the topic of discussion at a federal provincial territorial table and we will all continue to work at the federal level to address those issues. To tackle the over representation of indigenous people in our justice system, we are opening 10 new indigenous justice centers across the province. They will be operated by the first at BC First Nations Justice Council and offer free culturally appropriate services to help people address the root causes of why they're in contact with the justice system and break the cycle. For people in our communities who are struggling with addiction, mental health issues, they need treatment to get better. We are working with the St. Paul's Clinical Addiction Program along with Providence Healthcare and Vancouver Coastal Health on a new model of addictions care, one that moves people seamlessly from crisis response in our emergency rooms and our streets to detox, to treatment and supportive housing. It will fill the gaps between services where people might relapse and fall between the cracks and it will be a model for the entire province. Finally, in the upcoming spring session, our government will introduce new legislation targeting unexplained wealth and organized crime. Unexplained wealth orders are a tool to go at why organized crime exists, to make money. We will be seizing the assets and going after the proceeds that attract young people to organized crime and gang life, the flashing cars, homes and luxury goods. And we will remove the profit incentive for organized crime and send a strong message. All of these measures build on work that our government has already been doing on this very important issue for British Columbians. New supports for people leaving correctional institutions to help them break the cycle and make a fresh start. Reversing cuts to sexual assault centers providing support to victims of crime. Investing in housing, mental health and poverty reduction and fighting the money laundering and organized crime that fuels the toxic drug crisis. Today's safer communities action plan is an important step forward with more to come. Everybody in our province deserves to feel safe in our communities. As your new premier and as your government, that is what we are focused on. We're ready to build the BC we all envision, one where everyone can build a good life and feel safe at home in our community. Thank you. Now I'd like to invite our next speaker, Corey Wilson from the First Nations Justice Council. Got it? Yes. Thank you. I'm a little shorter than the premier. Thank you, everybody. I am really honored and grateful to be here today on behalf of the BC's First Nations Justice Council, honored of course to be on the territory of the Coast Salish people. And we at the Justice Council are absolutely delighted with the announcements from the premier today. The BC First Nations Justice Council is committed to bettering the lives of indigenous people, breaking the cycles that find overrepresentation of indigenous people in the criminal justice system, as well as providing supports that are wrap around and get at the root causes of the reason we have overrepresentation. The creation of 10 new justice centers on top of the three we already have and the virtual one, the three are in Prince George, Prince Rupert and Merritt, and we have a virtual justice center. By the end of the year, we'll have 14. And the centers are there to provide holistic wrap around supports for indigenous people, as well as it's employed with indigenous justice champions, people who are committed to the equity for indigenous people. We have elders, we have diversion workers, we have lawyers, we have paralegals, we have all kinds of people, cultural knowledge keepers that are there to provide those wrap around supports. And it's absolutely vital that we have that to break these cycles. The justice strategy, I encourage everybody to read our justice strategy. There are 41 strategies. This, the creation of a justice strategy targets strategy number four. And when we talk about encouraging everybody to read it, we also encourage you to ask yourself, what can you do to advance our strategy? We're committed to advancing all 41 strategies, but we can't do it alone. We talk about having allies and whatnot, but what we really need are accomplices. We need people to work with us to advance and to make systemic change and to make things different for indigenous people in this province. All of the announcement of just happened, creating safer communities, will without a doubt benefit indigenous people and create a safer, stronger British Columbia. My culture, I come from the Northwest Coast, I'm Kwakwa Kiwak. Our culture, potlatch system of governance is one where everybody has a role. Everybody has something to contribute and everyone has something of value to add to this. And we know that societies are stronger, better and more people are more successful when everyone is involved and everybody has equity and everybody has a say. So my hands go up to the premier and to everybody else that has committed to this safer communities. And I look forward to us building, leading the way really in a stronger, greater province, one that is completely inclusive of all people and everybody has a chance to live whatever it is they'd like to live. So thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. My name is Carol Lee and I'm the chair of the Vancouver Chinatown Foundation. I would like to begin by acknowledging with gratitude that we're gathered on the territory of the Musqueam, Squamish and Slade of Tooth peoples. I'm very honored to be here today for this important and very exciting announcement. At the Vancouver Chinatown Foundation, one of our core missions is to revitalize Chinatown to protect its history and help restore its vibrancy. As many of you know, Chinatown is more than a tourist trap or a place to get the best food. It's a community. A community of small business owners, merchants, artists, families and local residents including many seniors. And like other communities across the province, we've seen an alarming change in our neighborhoods since the pandemic. Vandalism has increased, theft and violent attacks are on the rise. We're seeing more people visibly struggling with mental health and addiction challenges in our communities. Many people don't feel safe walking the streets, they walk down every day for years. But Premier Ebi's announcement today is an important and exciting step towards improving community safety and well-being. So we can help people get the supports that they need and make sure people who are committing repeat violent offenses are held accountable. This is welcome news for Chinatown and I'm sure many communities across BC. Today's announcement will help our community get back on its feet and will support our efforts to bring and make Chinatown safer and more welcoming to the people who live, work and visit every day. For that, I'm very grateful to you Premier Ebi and your government and I'm optimistic for a brighter future. Thank you. Good morning everybody. My name is Adam Palmer. I'm the Chief of the Vancouver Police Department and it's my pleasure to be here today on the traditional unceded territory of the Musqueam, Squamish and Sleva Tooth people. And thankful to be standing here today with Premier Ebi and the other distinguished guests behind me including my colleagues from the RCMP, Vancouver Police and our new Mayor Ken Sim who is also the Chair of the Vancouver Police Board. The members of the Vancouver Police Department along with first responders everywhere in this province dedicate themselves every single day and every single shift when they come to work to helping people in crisis, to protecting people from violent and repeat offenders and to compassionately assisting society's most vulnerable. However, in recent years that has become more challenging and increasingly we've been hearing from people in community from all corners of the city and beyond who just don't feel as safe as they used to. We've heard comments about the revolving door of justice, people living in dangerous and squalid encampments in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, random stranger assaults, anti-Asian hate crimes and hate crimes against other people in our community and the overall feeling from community members who don't feel safe in their own neighborhoods. This undermines the trust and confidence in the institutions that are in place to serve our community. These are issues that I and other police leaders around the province have talked about before and we've said that something needs to change and that something in the system is just not working and a lack of coordination. I am very encouraged to hear many of these concerns echoed and supported in this announcement by Premier Ebe and I believe today's announcement to launch a new Safe for Communities Action Plan is a very positive step in the right direction. Today we've heard pragmatic ideas that when implemented will help to address some of the most complex health, safety and social issues that are affecting the quality of life for a growing number of people in British Columbia. I support these initiatives, namely those that address violent offenders and the sometimes revolving door of our justice system that expand mental health programs to provide better outcomes for people suffering from challenging mental health issues that take a stronger approach and that will hopefully see fewer repeat violent offenders released so quickly on bail back into the community. Measures that will focus on culturally appropriate and sensitive support for indigenous people involved in the justice system. Initiatives that improve detox and treatment care for people battling addiction and also initiatives that will utilize unexplained wealth orders to help tackle organized crime and money laundering in our province. These initiatives build on and complement some of our community partnerships and programs that we already have in place in Vancouver but will enhance them and make our programs even stronger. Certain things have proven to be successful such as the assertive community treatment teams, assertive outreach teams, car 87 and car 88, our mental health early warning system and our great partnership with coastal health, our chronic offenders and high risk offenders unit, our treatment on demand report, our indigenous advisory committee and sister watch committees. But I also know the challenges we face did not surface overnight, nor will they be solved overnight. We will continue to support increased coordination and accountability in all of our combined efforts. It requires more than just a policing solution and everybody needs to be at the table. It's paramount if we expect to drive improved outcomes for those that need it the most. The public expects that of us because everybody has a right to feel safe and be safe in their communities. In closing, I would like to congratulate Premier Eby on being officially sworn in this week and thank him for the launch of the new safer communities action plan. It's a positive and welcome step in the right direction. And I look forward to working with Premier Eby and his team to make life better and safer for British Columbians. I will now turn it over to Jonathan Morris. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Mr. Premier, Ministers, Mayor Sim and my fellow speakers, thanks so much for the opportunity to provide remarks at today's important announcement. My name's Johnny Morris and I have the privilege of leading the Canadian Mental Health Association's BC Division. And I also want to acknowledge that today I'm speaking from unceded ancestral Musqueam Squamish and Slaywood Tooth Territories and I'm grateful and honored to be speaking. When someone is experiencing a mental health crisis, what they need is a response from someone who can relate to where they are at, someone who can offer mental health care, someone to sit with them, listen to them and help them find the community and health-based supports that will work for them. And a peer-assisted care team, and you've just heard about an expansion from the Premier announced this morning, does just that. These mobile civilian-led teams known as PACT include a trained mental health worker, like a clinical counselor, and a trained peer worker, someone with lived and living experience of mental illness or substance use-related challenges as part of these response teams. Peer-assisted care teams respond to crisis calls and provide people with compassionate care, including crisis counseling, de-escalation, and connection to ongoing community service and support. These teams offer invaluable trauma-informed, culturally safer care to people in their own homes, in their communities, freeing up police to do their jobs. And we expect that peer-assisted care teams, including within this expansion, will prevent unnecessary involvements with our already stressed emergency room system. Peer-assisted care teams focus on sending health and social responses to health and social emergencies. And today's expansion of this model takes us closer to a vision of the right care at the right time in crisis. The first team was launched on the North Shore by the Canadian Mental Health Association's branch in November, 2021, offering support in English and Farsi. And that team, led by the CMHA Northwest Bank branch, has responded over 750 times to people in distress. That's 750 times that PACT has communicated with community members experiencing crisis and a time of need. Similar teams are set to launch in Victoria, led by AVI, and US, led by the Lower Mainland Purpose Society. Those who are worried about a loved one, about their own thoughts of self-harm or suicide, feelings of hopelessness, anxiety, or substance use, will be able to soon reach out to a peer-assisted care team in additional communities in the coming months. And we're very grateful to the province for the support for this work. One of the first recommendations from the LaPard Butler Report recently released was to develop civilian-led teams. And this recommendation also featured in the recent Special Committee on Police Act Reform. And it's really encouraging to see the province act so quickly on these important recommendations. We are very excited to lead this transformation of crisis care with partners in this province alongside municipalities and other partners. And today's announcement from our new Premier demonstrates a meaningful commitment to mental health care that works. I'm gonna hand it back to the Premier. Thank you very much to all of our speakers, to police service providers and indigenous leadership here today. At this point, I'd like to open it up for questions that you may have. And if you have a question for someone other than me, please let me know and we'll get that person up to the mic. Thanks so much. We're gonna move to questions. So for media on the line, please remember to press star one before entering the queue. Everyone will be limited to one question and one follow-up. And please remember to take yourself off speakerphone before asking a question. The first question today comes from Catherine Dibb, Radio Canada. I was wondering, oh, the mic is on, okay. I was wondering what kind of information or data is this announcement based on today? Like where did you take the recommendations from to come forward with this today? Thanks. So today's announcement is the product of collaboration with, first of all, across ministries. You'll see behind me, Mike Farnworth, the Minister for Public Safety, Minister Sheila Malcomson for Mental Health and Addiction, Attorney General Rankin responsible for the justice system. And so within government, across departments, looking for opportunities where we can work together with respect to the addiction care initiative coming from the front lines at St. Paul's Hospital, our province's Center for Addiction and Mental Health, of their vision of how we can better provide for people who show up in crisis at their emergency room, struggling with addiction and mental health issues, around the CAR programs, the leadership that's been shown by communities that have implemented CAR programs. You heard Chief Palmer talk about the success in Vancouver of their program. So if it works in some communities, we believe it will work in others that don't have them. And if we expand these programs, we'll have better outcomes. And you heard from the head of, from Johnny, from the head of the Canadian Mental Health Association about the impact we've seen of the peer programs. There's been one peer assisted program operating on the North Shore. It has dramatically reduced the number of calls that police have to attend there, responding to mental health emergencies, freeing them up to focus on crime and helping de-escalate and connect people to services who are in mental health distress. So these are really solutions that are coming, that are proven to work in communities that are coming from the grassroots, up to government and working across ministries in a collaborative way. Do you have a follow-up? Yes, there was talk about the need for more coordination. So how this announcement today respond to this need of more coordination among the different aspects of safety? Sure, for the most pressing issue, I'm here in Vancouver joined by Mayor Sim, newly elected. Many people here in Vancouver are concerned about random violent attacks and all British Columbians concerned about that issue. An integrated team of police, prosecutors, probation workers to identify risks early to work together to make sure that individuals that are either going to be involved in crime, risk or have committed a crime that the full information is put in front of the court, that there's rapid response and that everybody is working together is just one example of the many examples in this package of collaborations between the justice system, nonprofit organizations, municipalities and the provincial government. It's going to take all hands on deck and you can see two initiatives like the First Nations Justice Centers where Indigenous people are going to be supported bringing together all kinds of different services to help break the cycle that they may be involved in that keep bringing them into contact with the justice system. If we can break that cycle, not only do we make that person's life better, but we make the community better as well. The next question is going to Penny Dafflos, CTV. Hi, Penny. Hi, Premier. I guess there's a lot of moving parts here. This is a really ambitious plan. A lot of different agencies supposed to be working together. So I guess I want to know what is going to be your benchmark to, is it a time period that you're going to say, I'd like to see this and this done by then? Like, what's your assessment to tell whether this new plan and this coordination is actually working? What people are going to see in British Columbia is that we are going to be using every tool available to us at the provincial level to make a difference in their community. There are going to be some visible differences that we're looking for. So we're going to go head on at the encampments that people are seeing in their communities, the issues of visible mental health and addiction distress in their communities. This is not a change that's going to happen overnight, but my goal is we've got two years before the next election to show progress to British Columbians on these issues, coming out of the pandemic, all the way down the West coast of the United States and Canada and across our country, we're seeing these issues and BC will be a leader in responding to them if we're successful. That totally leads me to my second question. I mean, these issues, Vancouver's a really visible example, but small towns across BC are having similar issues, but so is virtually every city in North America. So what makes you think that this plan is going to succeed where virtually every other major city is failing dealing with these same issues? These aren't problems that we're going to solve overnight, but they are problems where we're going to show progress, where we have to show progress, where British Columbians expect it. There are smaller centres across the province that are facing huge strain, especially hub cities. One of the pieces that was not featured in my remarks, but is incredibly important as a virtual bail program, where people don't have to travel to Prince George or Williams Lake or Trail or Camloops or Kelowna for a bail hearing and then potentially be released and stuck in that community homeless with no contacts. They do the bail hearing from their home community. This is better for their community. It is better for them to be in a community where they have connections and not to be brought to a community where they don't have connections to get stuck, increase the homeless population and increase people's feelings of a lack of safety. There are so many integrated pieces here, all aimed at the same goal of improving conditions and communities across the province. Thank you. Next, we'll go to Janella Hamilton, CBC. Hi, thank you. What direction will be given to prosecutors within the federal policy to deal with repeat offenders? So the challenge that we've had is that there has been a change to the federal rules around bail with a number of unintended consequences. This has been followed by some Supreme Court of Canada decisions that introduce a lot of complexity into the work that prosecutors have to do in deciding, making decisions around bail. The direction that was given by Attorney General Rankin to the prosecutors was to, within the federal rules, to make it absolutely clear to prosecutors, but also to all British Columbians that we will work to the full extent within the federal law to make sure that violent offenders are not released waiting for their trial to make sure that those violent offenders are kept off the street. We are going to need to work with the federal government on their rules and I've reached out at the federal level to make sure that they're clear about that as of my colleagues across the country. So that work will continue, but British Columbians need to know that we're doing everything we can within our rules to make that happen. Do you have a follow-up? One more, yes, thank you. Can you tell us if you're planning to use mandatory treatment for drug users as part of these new measures? So treatment is absolutely part of the announcement today, connecting people with services through peer teams, through car teams, where police and people with experience and knowledge around mental health are working together to connect people to services, working with St. Paul's to create a seamless treatment stream. So when people show up in the emergency room, when they show up at the hospital in distress around addiction to mental health, that they can move directly to detox and into treatment. This will be a model that we can roll out across the whole province. Any time a physician is asked to make an assessment about whether a person is held at a hospital because of a mental health crisis, when police are involved, there's sometimes a disconnect between the medical system and the law enforcement system. So part of this announcement as well is a province-wide deployment of an app that allows police to contact directly those medical health professionals at the hospital to know how best to respond to someone in distress in the street to share information with the hospital so they're not waiting there or trying to explain to an emergency room physician or a nurse why this person needs to be held, that the information is shared seamlessly. That kind of coordination, that kind of response and physicians knowing that they have a good high quality treatment bed available if they decide to hold someone, those are essential prerequisites for a safe province and that's what people will be seeing. It's not gonna happen overnight, but we're gonna make sure to deliver on that. Next we'll go to Christine Robinson, Global News. Thanks, Premier. Just following up on that last question, is involuntary treatment for some people with serious mental health and addiction issues still on the table? If so, how would that work and when would we see it? Sure, there are two streams for involuntary care in our province. One is the corrections system when people are arrested and put in jail involuntarily. This is an opportunity for us to get in there, identify people, provide services, provide medical support so that when they're released, they're actually in better shape than when they went in. That's not currently the case and we're putting those investments in place to make sure that that happens. The other is the medical system, the difficult decision about whether or not a person should be held against their will at a hospital because they're in mental health crisis is made by two physicians. I want every physician that has to make that difficult decision to know that they have high quality resources available for treatment for their patients that need that care. It won't be the decision of the provincial government that somebody is involuntarily held. It'll be a decision of a medical professional, but the decision of the province that will be made is that we'll make the resources available for that treatment so the physicians can make the decisions and they don't have to worry, do we have a bed available? What kind of a bed is it? Is it decent? And then perhaps release someone that they shouldn't because they feel they don't have the resources that they need. Do you have a follow-up? Yes, and regarding the bail, what impact do you hope the new bail directive will have? What powers specifically are given to hold repeat offenders beyond your current abilities? Sure. No one agency, not prosecutors, not police, not nonprofit organizations, cities of the province or the federal government can solve this problem. Everybody's got to be working together and collaboration is key. The bail directive is really aimed at removing any ambiguity that a prosecutor may not know which direction the province thinks is in the public interest. The situation around bail has become incredibly more complex following the change in federal rules and some Supreme Court of Canada decisions. This sends a message both to prosecutors and to the public. What the province's intention is, what we believe the public interest is, that within that federal framework that they are taking every step possible to make sure the violent offenders are not released back into the community until they've stood trial. The next question is from Brianna Sharla-Baw, CP. Hi, Maria, thank you so much. I'm just wondering about the budget. What is the budget for this plan and where were those funds come from? Thanks. So several of the programs do have specific budget amounts attached to them that are part of your background package. I'm just trying to see if I've got the numbers at hand. I might have to, I'll get them for you. So the additional resources are in particular for additional funding for the peer-assisted teams to roll out to more communities for the CAR programs, $3 million in funding for municipalities to be able to develop CAR programs for their communities. Funding for these integrated teams for police prosecutors and probation officers to respond to the crisis. So I'll get the numbers on background for you. Okay, and then in terms of the federal rules, you said that you've talked to the Prime Minister and his cabinet. I'm just wondering what the response is, Ben. I know you said you're going to continue to collaborate with them, but what was the initial response? So I had a positive response from the Prime Minister. He said he understood our concern about this issue and he looked forward to working with the province on this issue. I have also spoken with Minister Mendocino, who said that he has heard about this from other provinces as well, and he's committed to acting with us to address this issue. And I know that this was a key topic at the Federal Provincial Territorial Meeting that was attended by Attorney General Rankin and Minister Farnworth for British Columbia, where we joined with other provinces in petitioning the federal government to take action on this. So they're very aware we're going to continue to press. Thank you. The next question is from Gordon Hoekstra, Vancouver Sun. Hi, Gordon. I'm just wondering, seems like a very complicated coordination plan. Is there going to be a lead agency or like a senior bureaucrat that is going to be overseeing this? Yes, I'll take an opportunity here to thank in particular the Ministry of Public Safety, Solicitor General, the Ministry of Mental Health and Addiction and the Ministry of Attorney General. They collaborated together within government to put this plan together. The ministers responsible worked overtime, their teams worked overtime to make this announcement possible. The provincial government will be the bottom line agency for public safety. The Ministry for Public Safety will be the bottom line agency for public safety in the provincial government. And that acceptance of our role to coordinate many different actors, to respond to the crisis in our streets in many communities in our province is something that you will see from our government. We will take that role of coordination and we will accept that responsibility even though there's federal responsibilities, municipal responsibilities, nonprofit organizations, police and others. We will be the coordinating agency where there is none. We're happy to step up to do that because British Columbians expect that. And what about in terms of the action plan sets out some goals, et cetera. Is there gonna be a kind of reporting out mechanism and how will that happen? Like will you be reporting out on whether you achieved what you set out to achieve on an annual basis or quarterly or something like that? So all of these programs, the CAR programs, the peer-assisted programs, the indigenous justice programs, they all have accountability frameworks, metrics that they'll be tracking. For me, the big mechanism or the big indicator that we're headed in the right direction is when British Columbians look at their downtowns when they travel into town to do some shopping or whatever, that they feel safer in their communities when they look around and they see someone in distress that that person gets the support that they need. And I know police will track the crime statistics and we're gonna track all those numbers but that feeling is what I'm looking for from British Columbians that we're headed in the right direction. Next we'll go to questions from journalists on the line. First we have Rob Shaw, check news. Hi, Premier. This is an enormous series of changes and some of them have been suggested for months by the people standing behind you. So why wasn't this done earlier when you were Attorney General or at some point when this was suggested? So when this issue was brought to my attention by the urban mayors, I asked them to go back to their communities and work with police and identify what they saw. What problems were there in their communities? What did we need to go after? They compiled that information and it was profoundly troubling to me and to Premier Horgan and to our whole government what police were seeing in their communities, what the urban mayors were seeing in their communities. We retained two experts, former Chief of Police, Doug LaPard, Amanda Butler, an expert in mental health and addiction to identify patterns, where were the gaps? What were we missing? Why was this happening? And they provided an exhaustive report to us with recommendations that are reflected in today's announcements. And in fact, in their report, supported the provincial government's urgent response to this issue and the seriousness with which we take it. I made a commitment during the leadership campaign. I've been on the road for almost six months traveling the province, talking to British Columbians and I heard from them their concerns about street disorder, about the feelings of concern that people with serious mental health and addictions were suffering in the streets and they were worried about the safety of those people but also they didn't feel safe in their own downtowns. And so I committed to them that this would be one of my key priorities. I was sworn in on Friday, today is Sunday and I told you that I'd hit the ground running. We are working hard. I wanna thank all of the teams within the provincial government that pulled this together, many pieces of work to be able to make this announcement today and thank our non-profit partners, the First Nations Justice Council and police for their support in pulling this together as well. Rob, do you have a follow-up? Sure, those of us who listen to the legislature every day have been listening for months with your attorney general and in some cases you saying you can't issue a directive to crown prosecutors because of federal law. This one looks like you've just added in the terms within existing federal law. So why did that take so long? How did you end up doing something here that you've been saying you couldn't do for so long? Well, Attorney General Rankin and certainly I fully understand that we cannot use a directive to prosecutors to invalidate federal law. Prosecutors have to work within the federal criminal code. Although that is absolutely the case, we can also be clear to prosecutors and by extension to the public of what our expectation is. The LaPard Butler report, when it arrived on Minister Rankin's desk, he took that, he started work with the prosecutors. The bail policy has been rewritten to reflect the realities of where we are right now in British Columbia under the new federal rules and what people are seeing in communities. The old policy was in place for many years, served British Columbians for many years without controversy. We need a new policy to respond to those new realities but that policy alone is not gonna solve these problems. Coordination between prosecutors, police, probation officers, nonprofit service providers, healthcare workers, this is what's going to provide safer communities. Next on the line, we have Andrea Wu, Globe and Mail. Hi Premier Ebe and congratulations on being sworn in this week. Unlike criminal forfeitures, which allow government to seize property from people who are typically convicted of crimes, unexplained wealth orders may not require a person to be convicted and in some cases, not even suspected of a crime. The BCCLA is up the position that they are an unacceptable infringement of Canadian's rights to the presumption of innocence due process and privacy. What is your response to that? I think that for many British Columbians, it's very frustrating to hear police say this individual is known to police. We have reason to believe this individual is involved in organized crime. Driving around luxury SUVs with secret compartments where they hide weapons. They live in fancy homes. They have fancy jewelry and luxury goods with no apparent source of income. And when we look at that situation, coupled with the report, the public inquiry into money laundering that says that we have a multi-billion dollar problem with money laundering in our province, action needs to be taken. And it is absolutely a fact that this proposal is a departure from existing civil forfeiture rules in British Columbia and in Canada. BC will be the first to introduce this type of regime in the spring session coming up. But British Columbians expect us to do a couple of things. One is to make sure this is a province where if you work hard and you follow the rules that the government is in your corner. And the second is that we don't want our kids to be attracted to a criminal lifestyle by people with fancy cars, fancy clothes, fancy homes that are earning their money on the misery of people who are suffering in our streets. And so that will be a shift. And I have no doubt that this will be challenged in court because it is new. But I believe we will be successful and we need to address these issues for British Columbians. Andrea, did you have a follow up? Do you think you would have supported the seizure of property from people with no confirmed links to crime when you were executive director of the BCCLA? I'm the premier of British Columbia and in British Columbia, under my leadership, this is not a place where organized crime is welcome, where money laundering is tolerated, where people flaunt luxury goods earned through the misery exploiting the misery of people in our streets. And that is a very clear message that I want to send to all hardworking British Columbians who feel that those who break the rules get ahead while they work hard, that is not going to be the case under this government. Next, we'll go to Alec Lazambi, BC today. We'll go to the next question. It's Les Lane, Victoria Times. Well, thanks, Premier. What are some of the factors specifically on the directive to the BC prosecution service that stopped you from doing this over the five years that you were attorney general? So the bail policy that was amended through this direction, the original policy was in place for many years for British Columbians for a long time across multiple governments, but the situation has changed. The federal government has changed the rules around bail. The Supreme Court of Canada has weighed in with decisions that make the job of prosecutors more complex and more difficult and has caused an increasing erosion of the public's confidence in the court system and the prosecution system. It is important that people understand that we have made it clear to prosecutors that they are to work within the full extent of the federal law to make sure that British Columbians are protected. It's my firm belief that prosecutors always work to that standard, but the direction will make it absolutely clear with no ambiguity and it will communicate to British Columbians that what the position of the government is on this important issue. And that direction is not in itself going to address this, making sure that prosecutors are working with police, making sure that prosecutors are working with probation officers in a coordinated way so that courts have the information they need to make decisions to protect the public is absolutely essential. And that coordination is core to this announcement today. A follow-up, Les? Why was the directive issued four days ago with no public notice? And when can I see it? Well, you should Les be able to get a copy of the revised bail policy right now. It should be in your materials. And my understanding was that it included a copy of the directive from Minister Rankin. So you should be able to access all of those materials. Next on the line, we have Fran Jenner, Northern Beat. Hi, thank you. Congratulations, Premier. My question is on the addiction care that you talked about crisis detox treatment, supportive housing. It doesn't sound like you have any money or new money for treatment. As you know, that's the prevailing concern across the province. Most communities don't have treatment or detox. And I'm also wondering, you told me in an interview last spring that prolific offenders or repeat offenders, violent offenders will need to be compelled somehow to get into treatment. So are you addressing, is there something here that addresses that? There are a number of pieces of today's announcement that begin to build the foundation for an emphasis on intervention and treatment for people who are in our criminal justice system. Government already laid some of the foundation with supports for people leaving custody to make sure that they're connected to services to minimize the risk of reoffending. In today's announcement, connections for police to directly to healthcare workers at hospital to make it easier to intervene and get someone in mental health crisis off of the streets, a key part of today's announcement. Supports for police to have a mental health worker in the car with them for those difficult calls that they face, part of today's announcement. Pure workers identifying people into stress, getting them into treatment and supports a key part of this announcement. Working with Providence, St. Paul's Hospital to design a seamless treatment system where people show up in crisis in the emergency room, get into drug treatment and mental health treatment directly from the emergency room, not having to wait, not having to go somewhere else, a key part of today's announcement. This is a foundation for what you will see going forward. These two tracks support for enforcement, protecting British Columbians and support for intervention, recognizing what is driving British Columbians' feelings of unease and lack of safety in their communities, namely mental health and addiction challenges. Simply because we understand and we're compassionate about addiction and mental health issues, doesn't mean we need to tolerate violent crime in our communities. And so there will be these twin tracks that you'll see both treatment and enforcement in our response to this challenge. And the last question today we'll go to Fran if she has a follow-up. Yeah, just, but that still doesn't sort of address the underlying issue which you identified, which is that repeat offenders of this nature won't take up treatment voluntarily. How do you deal with that? So when someone is interacting with police, if they have committed a crime, they're taken to custody by that police officer or they're taken to hospital if they're in crisis. Both of those tracks, this announcement is about increasing resources and support for that individual in that moment. And both of those are compelled things that happen to them. They're taken to hospital against their will. They're taken to jail against their will. And these are opportunities for us to intervene. And Fran, I can't emphasize this enough. This is an announcement two days after my swearing in, showing the direction that we're going to go. This is not all that we're doing over the next two years. This is the beginning of the work that we are going to do under my leadership on the issue of public safety. And I'm excited to announce more and to do more with police, with mental health service providers, with emergency care providers in our hospitals across the province, with nonprofit organizations, with indigenous people to address these really serious issues. Thank you so much, everyone. Thank you.